Power back online for first time in DPR’s Spartak village since 2014 outage

Donetsk, Apr 25 – DAN. Regional Energy Company repair teams restored electricity in the Spartak neighbourhood north of Donetsk for the first time since the 2014 outage caused by Ukrainian army strikes, the Donetsk People’s Republic Coal and Energy Ministry press service said on Thursday.

“Today, Spartak residents put on the light in their homes for the first time in the past five years as the Regional Energy Company restored power to the settlement where an outage occurred back in July 2014 as a result of shelling by Ukrainian armed formations,” the press service said.

In the course of the fighting Kiev forces fully destroyed the local power grid, including the 110 kW electrical substation, dozens of pylons and hundreds of metres of electric cables. The Regional Energy Company had to build Spartak’s power supply infrastructure from scratch.

In about two weeks, repairs teams laid nearly one kilometre of high voltage cable, installed a new electrical substation and pylons and connected houses to the grid. The Regional Energy Company used materials delivered to the DPR as part of Russia’s humanitarian aid.

The repairs were preceded by protracted truce negotiations with Kiev. The Coal and Energy Ministry, the Foreign Ministry and the DPR Office at the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination contributed to the efforts.

The Spartak village is located near the Donetsk airport. It is periodically shelled by Ukrainian army units. The population shrank by several dozen times during the conflict in which 100 natives were killed. The village infrastructure was devastated. DPR authorities repeatedly tried to evacuate the remaining residents but the latter refused to leave their homes. *jk

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